FED:NBN head says communities are enthusiastic

The company overseeing the federal government's high speed national broadband network (NBN) says it is seeing a "groundswell of support" for the $36 billion project, as it prepares to accelerate the rollout of optical fibre cable to more Australian communities.

"The question we hear most is not should we have an NBN but how soon can NBN get here into our town," NBN Co chief executive
Mike Quigley
told a federal parliamentary joint committee in Canberra on Tuesday.

"We welcome this enthusiasm and completely under stand why these communities want and need an NBN as soon as possible."

Mr Quigley said there was a "disconnect" between media reporting of the rollout and the reaction from local communities.

He referred to a number of recent reports, claiming NBN was laying fake cable, overspending on the connections and had been subject to hacking.

He rejected the reports and in particular the hacking stories, saying while the company took the issue seriously and was working on scenario planning to address such an attack, it had never happened.

"NBN was not hacked, it has not been compromised, it has not been put at risk and our security has not been breached," Mr Quigley said.

"The incident related to a commercial customer of NBN Co that is not yet connected to services."